Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Chairperson. From my work on family history, I got very excited about digitising the Catholic parish records. I have used the rootsireland.ie site but a link to images was mentioned. We need that extra information but I am not always absolutely sure that it is the person I am looking for, since the information on that site is quite sparse at times.

Are the National Archives and the National Library allowed to generate revenue? We have been talking about free-to-access and bringing in companies but is there another way? I imagine there is a big appetite for people to pay a nominal fee. Why can we not have a model we could enter into with a company, such as Eneclann or Ancestry? Many companies could be tendered to work with the National Archives or the National Library. Are they allowed to generate revenue to support other areas?

What should our report seek concerning the church registers? Having listened to the witnesses, they have gone around in circles, so we do not want to signpost them further around that circle again. I would welcome it if the witnesses could tell us what needs to happen.